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Classroom Tour 2013-2014

What a week! We bought a house, I started my post-grad weeknight classes, and school began. Safe to say I'm a bit hard to track down! While I'm not pulling any students for ESL classes just yet, I am testing our newcomers (and we have a lot of them) and getting materials ready for all their different ability levels. Here's where I work!

When you walk in, this is what you see. My horseshoe table (love it!) and my library.

Next to my horseshoe table is a rolling cart with teaching materials for guided reading, my pocket chart with Teri's Reading Strategies on it, (the rest are behind on a binder ring) and my phonics sound cards in the shoe organizer.

With Amy's help, I re-designed the layout of my library and reading area to accommodate my new furniture. Now my reading buddies have a place where kids can get to them, and my left-handedness can still write (somewhat neatly) on the easel. As for the library? Well, I got a box of books from Books by the Foot and have yet to fit them all in to my bins.

Here's my teacher desk, which I quickly realized I don't need, since I have the horseshoe table now. The only reason I keep it is because I have no closets and two shelves- the ones you see in the picture.

Looking across from my library or teacher desk, you can see the alphabet, tech corner, and writing/work work area. I took a page out of Reagan Tunstall's book and slid one of my extra tables under my writing table in case I ever need some extra space. In the corner are my Fountas and Pinnell guided readers- my kids aren't allowed to touch them except during GR, so I put them there, out of the way. We are *hopefully* getting a Nexus tablet cart for our room, so I left some space on the tech corner side for the cart and all the passwords/links we'll be using. On the table I have headphones, magazines, pencils, whisperphones, and some other necessary writing center goodies. The ugly cart I tried to hide with my blog button is overflow books that just don't have a place in my room!! (They would if I had a closet!)

Just a view from the Fountas and Pinnell side of the room. Yes, my back wall is still pretty blank. No, I'm still not sure what to do with it!

Here's my birthday poster/circles and my Wall of Fame- I'll put student work under the Wall of Fame and a Student of the Month in the space between the birthdays.

On your way out, put your papers in the "in bin" that I prettied up with some washi tape- it has roosters on it! By accident I put them upside down. Oops.

I'll switch out the iMessage chart with whatever seasonal poster/anchor chart we're using at the moment, and I have some space under it to put two up at the same time. My phone is by my door, not by my desk- it's quite comical to see me sprinting across the room to answer my phone...I sure get a workout during the day!

I hope you've enjoyed your tour of my classroom! I loved seeing everyone's room all done up and got so many great ideas and inspiration from great teacher-bloggers out there.

At my school, we have so many ELL students that they are placed in regular classrooms based on language ability (state law.) All of our teachers are required to be able to teach ELL students even if they are currently teaching Proficient/English only students. This year, we tested over 300 students in our K-3 school (180 Kindergarteners and incoming students.) Last year, when we had to retest all our current and exited ELL students, we had to test a total of 650 students.

At my school, we have so many ELL students that they are placed in regular classrooms based on language ability (state law.) All of our teachers are required to be able to teach ELL students even if they are currently teaching Proficient/English only students. This year, we tested over 300 students in our K-3 school (180 Kindergarteners and incoming students.) Last year, when we had to retest all our current and exited ELL students, we had to test a total of 650 students.